


The Great Hot Doco Incident

by aghamora



Series: and the bible didn’t mention us [4]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Food Truck, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Food Trucks, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 14:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15390780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: As sole proprietor of locally-beloved food truck Castillo’s Castle of Tacos, Laurel Castillo prides herself in using fresh, organic, non-GMO ingredients and serving authentic Mexican tacos.Getting mixed up in a turf war with the owner of a hot dog truckisn’tsomething she’s particularly proud of. She’s also not proud of the fact that she may be falling for a guy who sells wieners for a living.





	The Great Hot Doco Incident

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much just a fun, campy, culinary romp. What could be better.
> 
> Enjoy!

“One al pastor, two suadero, two skirt steak!”

Laurel clips the ticket to the holder and grabs a rag, dabbing it across her forehead before chucking it to the side. She passed the brain-dead, zombie Laurel stage in the night about half an hour ago, and now she’s snapped back into work-mode, a state far more robotic, virtually single-minded in her chopping and julienning and chiffonading. She’s sweat-soaked, exhausted to the point of dropping. Strongly considering taking one of Michaela’s knives to her wrists any minute now to put herself out of her misery.

But work-mode Laurel gets shit done. And so get shit done she does.

Michaela, looking miserable over by the grill, groans. “I thought you said it looked like the rush was almost over.”

“There’s no whining in food trucks, Michaela.”

“Why on _earth_ I let you talk me into this being my gap year job,” the other girl grumbles, holding up her gloved hands, which are coated in a variety of sauces and juices and other sundry taco ingredients, “I have no clue.”

Laurel rolls her eyes in the other direction with a grin and serves up half a dozen soft-shell tacos in corn tortillas to an exhausted-looking mother of three. They’re quickly swallowed up into her children’s grubby hands and crammed into their mouths, and Laurel raises her eyebrows, watching the woman herd them back toward the large movie screen. Free movie nights at the park are shitty as a rule, nothing but starving mobs of families and screaming Mongol hordes of children, but Laurel has learned to tolerate them over the summer for the sake of the almighty dollar.

“Hey, is that Connor and Oliver?” Michaela asks, glancing over her shoulder and out the window.

Laurel glances up and finds the two men strolling past, hands full of paper serving trays with something in them she can’t see clearly from a distance. Before she can say a word, Michaela is pushing past her and leaning her head out the concession window, calling over to them.

“Coliver! Get your asses over here!”

Their heads snap in her direction, and after a moment they saunter on over, similarly sweaty and exhausted but clearly on their break. They step in front of the line, and it annoys Laurel more than anything, but she doesn’t mention it, hovering in the background mincing garlic as Michaela talks to them.

“Why _hello_ , Michaela,” Connor snarks. “I must say, the hair net is a good look on you. Makes you look almost like you’ve worked a day in your life.”

Michaela sneers. “Didn’t expect to see your faces around here any time soon. Didn’t The Cock get reported to city council by the Concerned Parents Association or something?”

The Cock, Connor and Oliver’s aptly and crassly named fried chicken food truck, had been notably absent from the last few free movie nights in the park. Laurel can’t say she doesn’t understand why; having a food truck called The Cock is decidedly _not_ family friendly at a very family friendly event.

“The Philadelphia Society for Family Stability expressed their concerns,” Oliver corrects her. “City council dropped the inquiry once we threatened to contact the ACLU.”

“All PR is good PR,” Connor announces. “We’ve had lines around the block ever since. _I_ was considering a name change to The Big Gay Cock to really rustle some soccer mom feathers, but Ollie thought that might be pushing it.”

“At least you’re promoting open-mindedness among Philadelphia’s movie-going youth,” Laurel quips, then glances down when Connor reaches into his tray and lifts what appears to be some sort of greasy taco-hot-dog hybrid near his mouth. “What’s that?”

“Oh, this? A ‘hot doco’ or something. Half hot dog, half taco. New guy is making ‘em,” Connor answers, gesturing across the sidewalk to the other patch of grass where more food trucks are parked in a row, a misfit, ragtag band of restaurants on wheels. “Frank’s Franks, think it’s called.”

“Give me that,” Laurel says, reaching over and plucking it right out of Connor’s hand before he can take one bite. She brings it closer, turning it around to observe it closely and finding that it’s nothing more than a hot dog jammed into a hard taco shell with globs of guacamole, nacho cheese, jalapenos, and sour cream on top of it; an already bastardized taco only further bastardized by the addition of the hot dog. “This is – what the hell? _I’m_ the taco truck on these nights, everybody knows that.”

Michaela folds her arms. “Okay, you’re being dramatic. It’s _one_ menu item. And it’s only half a taco.”

“Yeah, and what the hell, that was like five bucks, give it-” Connor barks, but Laurel holds it out of his reach and steps outside the back of the truck with a huff.

“I’ll be back.”

Laurel hops out of the truck without so much as a backward glance, making her way across the way to the other row of trucks in the park and weaving in and out of the lines of hungry moviegoers in her way. The scent of grease and the sizzling of grills lays heavy in the air, the hustle and bustle and grit where she feels most at home.

Laurel finally comes upon Frank’s Franks parked near the end of the row under a tree, gaudy red and bright yellow with the name printed in large lettering across a cartoon hot dog. It’s unremarkable as far as appearances go, not even close to cleverly named or decorated, but the line at the concession window stretches so far she has to walk what feels like a damn mile before coming to a stop at the front, irate and sweaty and holding the disgraceful taco mutant in her hand with a scowl.

“I need to speak to the owner,” she grits out, stepping in front of a woman mid-order.

The man working the window raises his eyebrows. She thinks for a moment he looks vastly out of his element here. “There’s, uh, there’s a line-”

“I’m not here to order,” Laurel tells him, straight-faced. “I need to speak to the owner about _this_.”

She holds up the hot doco for emphasis. He looks even more bewildered. “Is there… something wrong with it, or-”

“All right, get outta the way, Doucheface. We got a problem here?”

Another man appears behind him right then, speaking in a thick Philly accent and moving with a confident air about him that leads Laurel to believe he may be the Frank she’s looking for. He’s tall, dressed in a simple black t-shirt and jeans, hair slicked back, bearded and also beard net-clad in the name of food safety, which Laurel never ceases to find fucking hilarious on her male food truck chef compatriots. He tugs it off before leaning over near the window, though, raising his eyebrows and prompting her to speak.

She stares right back, raises her chin, and holds up the tray in her hand. “Are you the one who’s responsible for this?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I’m-” She cuts herself off, breathing out sharply through her nose. “I’m Laurel. I own the taco truck over there, and I saw you’re serving these… whatever they’re called-”

“Hot docos,” he finishes for her, and she clenches her jaw.

“Look, I get that you’re new around here, but you’re the hot dog truck. Your thing is hot dogs – not tacos. I’m the taco truck at free movie in the park night.”

The most exasperating smirk she’s ever seen in her life spreads over his lips. “You sayin’ you got some kinda monopoly on tacos and all their variations now?”

“I’m _saying_ ,” she exhales in frustration, “it’s proper food truck etiquette not to undermine your fellow chef’s concepts and steal their business at events.”

“If people like my food more than yours, that’s your problem – not mine. Now you gonna order or not? You’re holdin’ up my line.”

Frank disappears back inside the truck, and Laurel circles around the side to the back doors, not about to let this go quietly and half-tempted to chuck her hot doco in the direction of the smug smirk on his face. Frank, noticing this, rolls his eyes and ducks out of the back, peeling off his plastic gloves. He looks even taller up close, and hardly seems sweaty at all, irritatingly well-groomed and put together for a food truck chef who has ostensibly spent the last few hours slaving over a grill.

Frustratingly attractive, too, in an ‘I-want-to-fuck-you-then-punch-you-in-the-nose’ sort of way.

 _God dammit._ She hates herself for even noticing.

“You can be pissed all you want, princess, but hot doco’s not coming off the menu. Kids love it. It’s whimsical.”

“What it _is_ is an abomination,” she scoffs. “And don’t call me princess; my name is Laurel.”

“Fine, _Laurel_. Why the hell are you so territorial about your tacos anyway? Relax. Try it, maybe you’ll like it.” The smirk is back in full force. Laurel can feel her blood reach its boiling point. “You’re so damn high strung you look like you could use a few more wieners in your life anyway.”

Her mouth drops open at that. Oh my _God_.

“You’re – you’re disgusting.”

“Maybe,” he concedes, unabashed, before stepping back inside the truck and ending their conversation. “But my tip jar’s overflowin’ and I got a line around the block, so who’s really the winner here?”

Laurel doesn’t think she’s ever been so effectively shut down before in her life. And when the eponymous Frank turns back to his franks, giving her all the regard he might give a gnat buzzing around his truck – that’s when she makes up her mind.

Oh, it is _on_.

 

~

 

Anger is a fantastic motivator. So is revenge, it turns out.

It’s a late night, and she doesn’t finish up at the park until a little before midnight, sending Michaela off to park the truck while she hops in her rusty old Civic, fifteen years of age and held together only by duct tape, blind faith, and a teaspoon of luck. When she steps back into their shithole of an apartment an hour or so later, both her hands are full of brimming grocery bags, and she plops them down on the counter with a swift, determined _thump_ , prompting Michaela to look over at her from where she’s curled up on the couch in front of the TV.

She narrows her eyes immediately. “What’re you doing? It’s almost one AM.”

“Plotting my revenge,” is all Laurel says, and Michaela knows better than to ask.

 

~

 

At the next free movie night in the park two weeks later, the Sonoran hot dog debuts on the menu of Castillo’s Castle of Tacos.

It’s her own creation, the product of about four or five sleepless nights spent doing research and perfecting the ingredients: a thick bolillo bun, a genuine beef frank wrapped in bacon and topped with a fulfilling but not overwhelming amount of onions, tomatoes, mustard, mayo, and jalapeño salsa. Fucking deliciousness, in a nutshell. It’s an immediate hit, and they sell like hot cakes. Or – well, hot _dogs_. Semantics aside, everyone loves them – even Michaela, who’s never been partial to meat, and even Connor and Oliver grudgingly admit how good they are.

“This seems like a lot of effort just to get revenge for one _minor_ taco slight,” Michaela remarks next to her at the grill, as Laurel assembles one of the hot dogs with all the care and attention she would give to one of her own children, “and you’re going to start a turf war with this Frank guy.”

“It isn’t about the hot doco,” Laurel asserts grumpily. “It’s the principle of the hot doco. It’s what the hot doco _represents_.”

Michaela rolls her eyes so melodramatically Laurel swears she can almost hear her corneas detach. “Mmm hmm. Whatever you say.”

Laurel stays inside the truck as the movie plays, sitting back smugly as if on a throne, waiting patiently for what she knows is coming. She isn’t vindictive; she wouldn’t use that word. But she can appreciate a good act of revenge every now and then, and it isn’t as if Frank of Frank’s Franks fame doesn’t deserve it for starting this in the first place. Being a woman and owning a business in an industry dominated by men is hard enough; she’s not about to let some hot-dog-selling, hair-gelled, smirking son of a bitch walk all over her.

The hours tick by with nothing but customers stepping up the window, however, and she wonders for a moment if he’ll show some maturity and refuse to storm over and pitch a fit – although if that would be out of his own sense of pride or actual genuine maturity, she doesn’t know. After cracking a wiener joke like a veritable six-year-old, though, she highly doubts the latter – and finally, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, as the movie ends and the crowd begins to thin out, Frank appears.

In true dramatic fashion – and also probably to mimic her – he’d somehow acquired one of her hot dogs, and he approaches the window with it in hand, looking more amused than irritated.

“Really? We’re doing this?” is all he says when he comes to a stop at the window, and Laurel leans over, feigning apathy as if she were dealing with any other customer.

“What can I get for you?” she asks, not missing a beat.

That seems to catch him off guard, and he scoffs. “Okay, cut the bullshit, taco princess. This ain’t a hot dog; this is bacon-wrapped retaliation.”

“I’m not retaliating; I’m experimenting with a new concept. The Sonoran dog. Ever heard of it? It originated in Mexico. Sonora. Which is a state in Mexico. Which I’m gonna guess you _haven’t_ heard of.” Frank opens his mouth, but she continues, cocking her head to one side. “Kids love it. It’s got bacon.”

“You’re-” He chuckles, of all things. Actually laughs, and in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s _at_ her. There’s a look in his eyes that might even be a distant cousin of admiration. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?”

It feels like a concession, however small, and Laurel smiles a haughty smile.

“I do know that.” She picks up a knife, chopping away at an onion as she speaks. “And, by the way, if you wanted one of those so bad, you could’ve come over to order it yourself instead of sending your sous chef.”

She’d noticed his errand boy Doucheface slink up to the window about an hour ago with only a baseball cap on to hide his identity, sheepishly order a Sonoran dog, and scuttle back over to Frank’s Franks with all the stealth of a Mack Truck, in an act of rather inept corporate espionage.

Frank doesn’t so much as blink, and only shrugs. “What, and lose out on the white lady, let-me-talk-to-the-manager dramatic effect?”

This isn’t the fight she was expecting, Laurel realizes – not even close. This is… They’re-

 _Bantering_. And she’s enjoying it. Fucking hell, she does _not_ want to be enjoying it.

“How about this?” Frank proposes. “We call a truce in this little turf war. Hot doco comes off the menu, so does your special. Fair’s fair.”

She considers it, briefly. These sort of aggressive tactics and emotional reactions are only going to hurt her business in the long run, probably, but she’ll be damned if she folds now when she’s committed to devising an entire – _fucking delicious_ – menu item just to spite him, and so instead she digs her feet in further, stubborn and headstrong as ever.

Her answer is short and to the point. She doesn’t even glance up from her onion. “No.”

“No?” he echoes in disbelief, and it occurs to her he doesn’t seem familiar with being told _no_. “Look, you don’t wanna start something you can’t finish here. ‘Cause my hot doco can outsell your snorin’ dog any day.”

“ _Sonoran_. And wanna bet?” She blurts the words out completely without realizing, and when Laurel stops and takes a look at his face, seeing the gears turning behind his eyes, she knows she’s made a grave error. She rushes to make a course correction, although she suddenly feels a lot like she passed that off-ramp ages ago, like her car is rolling over and over with her inside it and she’s pressing the brakes frantically to get it to stop. “I… I meant that in the idiomatic sense, okay, I don’t actually want to bet.”

Predictably, Frank ignores that.

“Fine, I’ll make a bet with you. Whoever’s special outsells the other at the next three movie nights in the park wins. You win, I take hot doco off the menu, and you get to keep selling your snorin’ dog however you want. I win…” He drifts off ominously, raising his eyebrows, and Laurel can feel it coming, God dammit, what the _hell_ has she done- “You go on a date with me.”

 _Either way she wins_ , a tiny, traitorous part of her subconscious pipes up. Laurel stomps out its voice like she would stomp on an ant and glares daggers at him. She’s never been an overly competitive person, but she thinks Michaela must be rubbing off on her ever so slightly, because she can’t resist the urge to mutter, “You’re not gonna outsell me.”

“Gotta let the people decide that, taco princess.”

“Fine,” she bites out, pausing her chopping long enough to fix him with a long, steady gaze. She has no damn idea what she’s getting herself into or _why_ , exactly, she’s getting into it, but she’s too far gone and far too proud to back down now. “But you’re not gonna outsell me.”

Frank chuckles. “And you know that how?”

“Because. I’m not the taco princess,” she says, the set of her jaw and the angle of her chin inviting him to do his worst. “I’m the taco queen.”


End file.
